Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Cataclysm Raid Progression Changes: Part 1

I decided to break this in to two parts. This first post will look at my first reaction the change and how it will impact raiding. My second post will deal with some of the broader topic brought up in the post like Gating and Hard modes.

The Cataclysm news continues to roll today with this post from Nethaera. If you haven't read it I highly suggest that you go and give it a look. It is to long for me to quote the entire thing.

First Reaction: VERY Negative

There is a lot of stuff in that post, and I'm not sure what exactly I was reacting to, but I hated this change from the start. Through out WotLK I've had fairly good luck with 10man groups. My T7 group was one of the best, and was one of the first to complete the Meta on my server. In Ulduar, it took a while for a group to form that fit my needs, but eventually we put together a very good group that cleared Ulduar, ToGC, and is now working well through ICC. We've had some issues along the way with roster make up, and such, but I consider my 10man group to be one of my WotLK highlights. This change will take it a way from me.

I like being able to get the drake rewards and such a little easier then I would be able to in 25mans, but the best part about 10mans is that they are more laid back. We joked around a little more. There was a little competition between the guilds two 10man groups. It was just fun. Plus I was hoping that I might be able to start of Cataclysm by tanking 10mans. Once again, that is all gone with this change.

Second Reaction: Weary but not fully negative

While I am not all that positive on the post, I am a little more rational on the subject. I still see the negatives, but it also opens up the doors for new positives.

Not having the 10man option means I will have 4 extra hours a week to do what I please with. In particular I feel like I've ignored my alts in WotLK. In TBC when I leveled an alt to 70 I would take him into Kara. I would get some gear and a sense of how the class was played. I haven't had that experience in WotLK. I did get a chance to play my Warlock through Naxx but that was primarily because Naxx was so under tuned. To get out 20 man achievements for the meta, we ran it twice in a single weak with half the raiders being on alts. When Ulduar came out the progression on my warlock almost completely stopped. Most of my guildies were in 10man groups that took up there WoW free time and there weren't many alt runs. I also found it hard to commit to any of the alt runs that did happen because I needed to balance WoW with my real life.

Taking 10 mans out of the equation means I can sleep when I need to sleep, and may give me an opportunity to focus a little more on one of my alts when Cataclysm comes around. That isn't so bad.

This will also help me as a blogger. Believe it or not, I hate my gear lists. I know you guys love them. They bring a lot of traffic to the site, but having multiple ilevels of gear in the same tier is a problem. My gear lists are now freaken huge. Having the same gear drop out of both 10man and 25 man should make those lists much easier to produce and maintain. This doesn't mean I don't have concerns though.

Balancing Issues:

My first big issue with this philosophy is the 10 vs 25 balancing. For this new structure to work well Blizzard is going to have to get this balancing near perfect. Unfortunately Blizzard has not shown a lot of skill at this in the past. I am going to go way back to Sarth 3D as my primary example but I've had similar experiences through out WotLK.

Ask any serious progression raider during T7 what the hardest fight was and you will get the same answer every time: 10man Sarth 3D. It was a tough fight. Much tougher then it's 25man version. Most of the top guilds on my server got the 25man version down first and then the 10man version a month later. We were a 25man guild at this point with near BiS gear from 25mans. What we had to do in the end was to stack the group. We sat Casters the first week for a Melee heavy group, and then did a Caster group the next week. There was no way 10man strict guild could have gotten this.

That was a long time ago, and I do think Blizzard has gotten better over time, but the problems are more structural then that. If they keep the rooms the same size between the two versions then 10 mans are always going to have an easier time avoiding damage. not to mention it will always be easier to avoid one Malleable Goo then it is to avoid 2. Sure you can increase ranges of the boss abilities and such but then it becomes overly difficult on the healers because I doubt they would increase the range of their heals

The problem is that 10man and 25 mans are very different at their core. If they are not able to maintain a good balance between the difficulty then you are going to see guilds treating their raid ID like a talent spec. Raiders will fight which ever version is easier. If you can change the raid size mid instance then raid leaders will kick 15 people from the raid to down an encounter.

Destabilization of Guilds:

I think creating one lock out also has a good change to destabilize all kinds of raiding guilds.

What is the incentive to raid a 25man raid? I know Blizzard says that there will be a greater quantity of gear, but how big of a deal is that? A good portion of our gear already gets sharded every weak. If your guild is already highly geared the extra loot provides little incentive to do 25 man. Not only that I would assume that only one of each item could drop as it is now. Therefore, if everyone wants the awesome trinket that drops off of boss X you have more incentive to do two 10man raids because you have more chance of it dropping and having multiple people get it.

The 10man guilds will suffer as well, due to their limited roster size. In my guild we have about a 30man roster. We assume that a couple of people won't be able to make it each week for what ever reason, and only expect to sit 2 or 3 people each raid. In a 10man you will need an back up tank, healer, and at least one DPS. One person can fill multiple of those roles with dual specs, but in many cases the second spec will have lesser gear and less experience.

In the end, one person being absent from a 10man raid can be devastating, but 25mans can handle it better due to the larger roster size. Ultimately I worry that the incentives are not there to keep people raiding 25 mans, but that a 10man raid size is to small to really support serious raiding.

26 comments:

Cainman said...

I definitely see some of your concerns, but overall I think this could become a positive change. Way back the devs used to talk about players having the option of two progression paths. Either you did 10's or you did 25's. Instead it became you have to do 25's because the gear was so much better, and you still had to do 10's as well.

I started the expansion in a group of friends doing 10 mans only and I was having a lot of fun as it was a group of people I truly enjoyed playing with. We cleared all content quickly and downed 1 drake Sarth pretty quickly, but people weren't happy doing just 10's when 25's held such better gear. So before long we broke up and most people went as a group to a 25 man guild. I chose to not go with them and transferred to a more hardcore 25 man guild. One of the main things I liked about the 10 man guild was the fact I liked everyone in it and knew they were all good players. The 25 man they joined had a large number of failplayers and a few people I knew I didn't like.

Now I ended up raiding the 4 days a week of 25 man, and being pressured to raid another day or two for 10 mans. Like you say this was only on one char because you didn't have the time to do a raid here or there for an alt.

Then ToC came out and it became have to raid 25 mans and 10 mans on two chars to better gear the main raid you had to have 2 raids with half alts half mains in each.

A lot of times with the 10 mans having different loot you feel like you have to keep running them long after you wish you had stopped because the way itemization works a 10 man item was still better than a 25 man item.

Taking a 25 man guild and trying to run 2 10's always resulted in some people upset they weren't in one of the groups.

So, personally, I hope they achieve this in a way that is positive. I would love to be able to raid 10 mans with a small group of friends that I enjoy playing with and not have to raid outside of main raid days as well. I have my doubts that they will pull this off, but if they truly succeed in offering two equal progression paths where the choice is what you prefer I'll be happy.

Anonymous said...

From the posts I'm reading, it seems the problem with this change is that running 25s isn't fun and now no one will run them.

Anonymous said...

I expect 25 man raiding to suffer. The 25 man pug will become a thing of the past - only guilds will run those.

I don't really expect 10 man raiding to suffer. Dual-spec/hybrid proliferation should cover that. Bit of planning at the start of the expansion, and no problem.

I raid 25, but enjoy 10 man for all the same reasons Graylo listed. Looks like I'll need a second main if I wish to experience both raiding pathways. Wonder which alt is going to get the call-up? :)

Celery said...

The biggest thing that came to mind when I heard of it... other than "oh god we're going to have to drag 43 people's alts through 10-mans to keep them entertained"...

was why raid with 24 other people who you may or may not like, and compete with 6 other people for the gear that might drop. Sure more items will drop, but if I run 10-man, if it drops, I get it.

I don't want to come off as a loot whore, but it's a lot of effort to organize raids. 10-mans ARE more fun, they're more relaxed, I know the people in my 10-man better than the full raid because we have more time to actually chill.

I'm worried because a lot of people in my guild feel similarly--what's the point in 25's if we can just do 10s for the same reward? So what happens when 5 of them leave? What happens to recruitment when people could just run 10s? Maybe it'll all work out, maybe it's a good motivation to get with your friends & form a 10man guild... but I really don't have a good feeling about this.

Ballox of Aegwynn said...

I like the change. I'm GM of a small sized raiding guild. When we do 25 mans, we have to pug half the raid. I'd say it takes an average of 30 mins to get back to the boss after a wipe. People go get drinks, walk dogs, refuse to rez dead ppl, argue with the pugs, and 2-3 people drop group each wipe. I remember doing a 25 Uld raid on Koralon. We did 3 attempts in 4 hours and I swore off 25 mans for good.

Then ToC came along. Yes, there was much lost in atmosphere, ambiance and the back story was disjointed and rushed. But the raid itself was a blast. 5 bosses, no trash, and you're back to the boss as soon as you enter the raid. And the location was close to Dalaran. So it was nbd to hearth, find replacements and get back if you didn't have a lock. 25 mans were back in my book.

I was expecting more of an Uld-style raid when ICC hit. Arthas's home deserves something epic. But once again the rez-lag came back. You'd be amazed how many pugs in 264 gear can't get Marrowgar down. So you start at 7 pm, pug half the spots until 8 (8:30 if you have to pug a tank), clear trash until 9, work on Marrowgar until 10.-11 The raid is doomed as soon as a tank drops, and I get 12 pugs spamming trade about how I suck and never to raid with my guild. Awesome.

Shantaram (EU K'T) said...

I think this is an AWESOME change. I used to be in a fairly competitive 25 man. As one of the organizing staff, this was a lot of work. Yes, I mean "work" as in an activity that you engage in for the reward, mainly, as the activity itself is fairly demanding and not that fun.

Then real work kicked in and I had to become a casual. *sigh*

10-man raids are more intimate, more resilient to misplays, it is easier to lead them with a sense of camaraderie, of closeness between people. It is easier for a 10-man raider to feel more engaged in the performance of the overall raid. Simply put, I find the experience way more enjoyable, and way more social, than that of a 25-man.

There is a lot of truth, as far as I'm concerned, in the notion that players at the moment do 25-man out of "necessity" to get better gear, and different achievements.

In fact, during Sartharion+3 at the time of release, I remember telling to my friends: "this fight is harder in 10-man than in 25, but the main difficulty of the 25 resides in being a good HR manager."

I don't want to be a good HR manager. I want the challenge and rewards of that game to be somewhere else.

Hurray for that change! \o/

Kae said...

I'm an officer in a ten-strict guild: it is certainly possible to maintain a serious raiding schedule with a ten-man raid.

We aim for 13 to 14 raiders on our roster to cover for the 2/3 raid attendance expectation, and have a number of casual friends/family in the guild who can step in (or we grab a pug) in the event that we have too many coincidental vacations. It's worked well for over a year now :) Evens out to about 2 extra players for every party in the raid, so a comparison to 25 man is having a 35-raider roster, which I know is maintained by several 25-man guilds.

I think the biggest change for 25-man raiders (that actually want to raid 25s and don't pare down into 10s themselves) is simply that they cannot run 10s to get extra badges and fill that extra time due to the shared lockout. What remains to be seen is if they all swap to alts to fill that time, or if there will be enough concurrent content to keep them occupied.

Duskstorm said...

This news is the final "carrot on a stick" that 10 man content needs to offer to be able to recruit the quality players.

I like sharing lockouts.

However, the actual implementation I think could be better. In my view, if Cataclysm gear was ilvl 300, my ideal would be:

300 - 10 man normal
313 - 25 man normal
319 - 10 man hardmode
326 - 25 man hardmode

10 and 25 man normal would share a loot table, 25 man gear would be "better" stat wise but otherwise the same (exactly how heroic vs. non heroic gear is now).

10 and 25 man hardmode bosses would share a loot table separate from normal. This incentivizes hard modes by providing upgrades to slots that there were no upgrades at all for in normal modes.

I feel like they should make 10 man content a more viable path for quality players, too, but 25 man content should always have a bit of a loot edge.

Just my 2c.

Duskstorm said...

D'oh! I got the numbers wrong, I meant

300 - 10 man normal
306 - 25 man normal
319 - 10 man hard
326 - 25 man hard

The point being that it's a SMALL jump between 10 and 25 man content, but a BIG one between normal and hardmode.

In addition, they could also make normal mode bosses drop "blue" quality items (with perhaps epics dropping from the "wing" bosses ala heroic 5mans), and have hardmode bosses drop the purples.

Myllo said...

in a nutshell, less time on your main character, and more time on other characters.

I'll have probably a "25 man toon" and a "10man toon". However, I did like my main toon to compete for best 25 man and 10 man progression.

Overall, i'm very displeased with this, Graylo - you've stated your concerns, and looked at the positives, do you like this change or not?

Bovismaximus said...

I can see how this announcement would be negative for 25 man raiders, it is the continued storey of Blizzard trying to accommodate the “casual raider”. I think most guilds do not have the manpower to organize their own 25 man runs and thus end up in raiding alliances or pugging to get their lockout burned each week.

That is the case for me. My guild consists of many exceptional players, however our numbers are too few to fill a 25 man on our own. Recently we endeavored into an alliance with another guild in a similar position to run 25 mans. Now, I am obligated to attend both our guild 10 man runs and the raiding alliance 25s. It really contradicts the definition of a “causal raider” if I need to invest 3-4 days a week on raiding. This change is a refreshing breath of air – now we will be able to continue progressing on our own, have fun doing it, and not be penalized for missing a 25 man lockout.

I feel for all you 25 man raiding guilds, but personally… this is a fantastic change and I am very excited about it!

Selphë said...

Don't like it at all. In my case I was playing both in 25 & 10man, but the 10man always worked better (competitive for first), I was pleased with this situation. Now I have to choose between staying with my guild which will focus on 25 (with good friends but maybe bad results despite of my effort), or make my own 10man (or 25 but competitive) guild.

Mushu said...

Most people seem to be missing the point that both 10 and 25 mans will be virtually identical in "hardness". THAT is why 25's will die, because why spend hours setting up a 25-man raid when it is the same difficulty and drops the same loot (albeit a bit more) as 10-mans? I'm in a 25-casual raiding guild currently working on Sindragosa/25. We have several 10's that have gone all the way and downed LK. We like the 10's as a practice for the 25's because 10's are easier and more "fun". 25's require concentration and focus and commitment to complete. I enjoy the difference and hate this new change.

Heezashee said...

I welcome these changes. It is about time that things were simplified - raiding, gear and progression path etc...

I think it is fine if 25 man raiding dies off and I think that Blizz is trying to get people to go that direction anyway at some point in the future, possibly by the end of the Cataclysm expansion cycle.

The way I see it, if 25 mans went away completely and all guilds were 10 man only, then they could finally make meaningful "guild alliances". Guild alliances - you could call them pacts or allegiances or whatever - would be the way to do 20 man raids, ie you couldn't do a 20 man raid with just your guild alone. This would make it feel more epic, promote interguild cooperation and participation. The 20 man raid for the allegiances could only be done say once a week to make them more rare and special, maybe giving them access to different mounts, or to maybe trade in one of their older mounts for a new one so they get no benefit for the mounts acheivements over any otehr player as far as numbers go, so it would only be for bragging rights or to show off.

I really enjoyed the vanilla WoW 40 man raids back in the day, but honestly, the player base has changed since then, people were more innocent and willing to work with others to see the end content. But these days, people have little patience, litte time and little willingness to deal with others. It's more enjoyable today to run with 10 people you trust and can relax with and learn from, not to mention have fun with. 25 man raids just always felt stressed and impersonal and harder to get gear, and if you pug them, good luck on getting back in on what you started so you won't get to finish the raid and get the chances at the gear anyway.

Can't wait till Cataclysm comes out. Things will be shaken up quite a bit. Racial traits, class spells and talents, gear, raiding, etc will feel very different and everyone will get over it and stop complaining just as quick as they did when 40 man raids went the way of the dinosaur.

Tsuki said...

I found it a fairly positive change. Not having to run 10s AND 25s to stay on edge of progression (and on par with all available drakes & HMs) is sure nice, and while 25-man guilds will be really rare with that change, they'll also be more homogeneous.

I ENJOY 25s for the same reason I used to enjoy 40s way back in Vanilla: the more people, the more epic it is. 40 people vs. Ragnaros was epic, 25 people going through hell to survive Firefighter was epic, now only 10 people beating THE Lich King? Not epic at all.

So 25-man guilds will only exist if formed by like-minded, focused people that WANT to go through the trouble and do it the hard way. Managing & being part of a 25s is too troublesome for someone that only wants the loot to tag along.

Unknown said...

We're all focused on the gear, and less on other mechanics of the game that are going to be put in. The blog I Am A Paladin pointed out that there's a very good chance that the benefits for 25man guilds won't be in the loot, it'll be in the Guild Progression system that Blizzard hasn't told us much about yet. Everyone focuses so hard on the gear, they forget that Blizz is trying to put in other incentives through that system. Now if only they'd hurry up and announce something so people would calm down.

Binary said...

My guild has a 25 man raid.
The raid runs 3 days a week.

The problem I see with this change is that if our 25 man can't field 25 people on the second raid night of the week, downsizing to a 10 man might leave quite a lot of people sitting out.
20 people showing up, all being locked into one raid id. Downsizing to 10 man would leave 10 people sitting out.

If you could split the a 25 man raid into 2 10's this might be ok.

Hana said...

I run in a 10-man strict guild like Kae and we have 11 people in our roster, and if we're missing more than one person on any particular day we'll pull in an out of guild friend, but that's generally rare.

If we're missing a tank, I switch from moonkin to bear to fill in. If we're missing a healer, our shadow priest goes disc (or I come on my paaldin alt).

It works out, though I admit there are a few times where I really would like a twelfth, but recruitment is hard for a 10-strict group. :\

GamingLifer said...

10 man raiding is kind of a joke. It's something you do on an alt for fun, or to socialize with people, or better yet, in BC, it's something you did to prepare for 25 mans. I'm glad that I quit; these changes seem just another push for the WoW-deficient to get into raiding.

AM1 said...

You know, I love your blog. So, I say this with a healthy degree of respect for you. However, as someone who runs a 10-man strict guild who is very serious about raiding, I find your characterization of 10mans misinformed.

1) "In a 10man you will need an back up tank, healer, and at least one DPS. One person can fill multiple of those roles with dual specs, but in many cases the second spec will have lesser gear and less experience."

In our guild we have three to five people who have the ability to change specs. We ask our hybrids to either be tank-dps or healer-dps. Every person who fills this role does it well. Their "main" spec is often a stronger spec, but their "off" spec is also excellent.

2) "In the end, one person being absent from a 10man raid can be devastating, but 25mans can handle it better due to the larger roster size. Ultimately I worry that the incentives are not there to keep people raiding 25 mans, but that a 10man raid size is to small to really support serious raiding."

Our roster has a +x number to support people who don't show just like a 25-man guild. Having run a 40man and 25man guild, the dynamic is exactly the same.

I feel really badly for the people who love the epic feel of the larger raids who feel like they're losing something. But, just like the hunt that my guild goes through to find players who are in it for the 10man experience rather than the loot--my guess is 25man guilds will not have a huge problem finding people who like the epic feel of 25s and will continue doing them--despite not getting the super loots.

I guess what bothers me about all of this is that the insults of 10man guilds -- they can't seriously raid for example -- have just escalated.

For a guild like mine, finally a choice we make about how we are going to raid seriously no longer means taking a gear hit. For a 25-man guild, the raiders can also continue to make the same choice about how they want to raid, while continuing to not take a gear hit. If people don't want to raid 25s anymore and prefer 10s, that seems to me to be a design issue.

And finally, for jerks like the dude above this post who say 10mans are a joke? Please try running them in 10man gear. If it were so "easy" a strict 10man guild would have downed the LK hard by now. No those people aren't just worse players than you, they are evidence of the impact gear has on encounters.

Graylo said...

@AM1

1) Is your guild the exception or the rule? One example of success does not make a trend.

I also think it takes a specific type of person to run a "true" 10man strict guild in the current environment. I think in general they tend to be more focused on the goal and are more capable of handling multiple roles.

That's not going to hold true when a ton of 10man guilds form because the prefer 10man to 25man. Just because your guild doesn't fit my point doesn't mean my point isn't valid.

2) This is going to be mathy. I don't disagree, but I don't think you understand the realities of a small raid (or sample) size. Losing 5 people in a 25man is just as bad as losing 2 in a 10man. It is definately possible for a 25man guild to lose 5 people in a short period of time. However, it is more probably for a small guild to lose 2 people on a given night or for good then it is for a 25man guild to lose 5. I am not an expert on the subject but it is my understanding there there is mathimatical explination for it. That said you don't need to look at math to understand it. In WoW you are much more likely to have 2 raiders that are closely related enought to dictate each others activity. You just don't see that much with groups of 5. Therefore, a husband and wife quitting the game has a greater impact on a 10man then a 25man.

Yoor - Tirion(EU) said...

Thank's for another great insight in upcomming changes.

I fear that the loot for 25 man groops will not be focust only on items, but more likly on more Badges/Emblems. Especcialy if you think about, that starting ICC you might want to bye items with Emblems ( Up to 8 out of 16/17 items). - This makes up to 50% of your gear in a 10/25 man group. ( 5 itmes, for set; Belt, Shoes, Trinket;)
Therefor there might be a large frustration getting into a 25 group for doblle of emblems am more loot, without having the experiance of a "easier 10 man group".


I still think its a bad idear and it will change raiding parties completely!

AM1 said...

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

I also responded to your following post--and I've been mulling over your points ever since.

I think I'd been assuming that 25man raiders were responding to this change without thinking outside their own experiences--including, not realizing the way their 10-man experience is dramatically shaped by the gear from 25s.

But, I'd not at all thought about how my own experience running a 10man guild was shaping my perception of the situation. I think you pointed out in your next post--at least implicitly--that the majority of players aren't actually people running successfully in 25-man guilds or people running successfully in 10-man strict guilds, but rather people doing okay in 25s and doing pretty well in 10s. For example, on my server I think we only have 2-4 very successful 25 guilds and there are only 3 10man stricts. I really appreciate the insight that all of the other numerous guilds on the server are actually very right to be disturbed by this change--as it is going to change their experience pretty dramatically.

As for the issue of roster :-P I do understand the issue of sample size. While it is true that if we lose one or two people we are likely in a worse situation than a 25man guild, I think that most 10 guilds are just calculating their rosters differently. Again, this could all be totally anecdotcal since I'm comparing against my own experience. We have a core who show up most of the time at +3-4 more than we need, we have a "casual" rank at +3 more than we need, we have non-raiders who are geared for raids but don't necessarily want to commit who we can call, and we have buddies in 25man guilds with geared alts. We rarely go below the "casual" rank to fill spots, and very frequently never touch that rank. I think it's just a different system really -- it's not that it is more difficult. The organization system is the same as when we did 25s--although now we use our hybrids very extensively to provide the flexibility we need. But then, we are the same people made our 25man system too haha, so take that as you will.

Although, as I think about it, I wonder if the thought that in WoW you are more likely to have two raiders who are closely related enough to dictate each other's behaviors can actually work two ways. On the one hand, we do have 3-4 core raiders who can get called into the same RL commitments maybe 1-2 times a year--but on the other, the tightknit nature of the strict 10 means that we also have the phone numbers of most of the guild so calling in non-raiders isn't difficult haha.

Anyway, wall of text, no need to replay. But thank you for the food for thought :-)

Anonymous said...

Hey Graylo, I like your artice. A piece of advice though. When people read something that gets them fired up, they immediately want to respond. They're not going to read the rest of the article until they get their thoughts off their chest. So it's no use being disappointed or surprised if they didn't get your full argument. It'll save you a lot of anxiety if you understand this ahead of time.

I'm also sad you changed your original title. Your article is an opinion piece. Changing your title (or any part of your original post) meant you let the negative feedback change your opinion. Stand strong behind your convictions, even if they are misinterpreted.

Keep up the good work brother.

Bruski said...

@ballox
"The raid is doomed as soon as a tank drops, and I get 12 pugs spamming trade about how I suck and never to raid with my guild. Awesome."

You're in a vicious cycle of failure, and you need a name and guild change to get out.

Over the past 13 months on my server, I've pugged 25 man on my main, a paladin tank. I began by advertising in trade, taking whoever would come, and hoping to get Flame Leviathan, Razorscale, and maybe Deconstructor. Eventually we kiled Auriaya about the time ICC came out, and killed Anub the 3rd week he was there. Currently I have so much interested that in addition to the 2 raids every Saturday I currently have, I'm trying to add a third 25 man.

I did so by being a hardass and not tolerating any bullshit in my raids, making a name for myself as a fair just raid leader who knew his business and didn't tolerate any crap. People who posted were afk for ready check, posted dps meters, waved their epeen around to much, made denigrating comments about others in an unfun manner, were either kicked or not invited back. I've declined players from the top guilds on my server because they have a piss poor attitude, even though their performance is amazing.

You don't get a solid raid group by catering to people and letting anyone in, you need to establish a hard line from the first, and then people will hear about you and recommend you to their friends. I haven't had to advertise inn trade in the last 6 months, I keep getting more and more interest because everybody and their brother wants to get all their friends in on the action, where my raids are now 9/12 and 8/12 respectively in ICC, and I expect to hit 10/12 this weekend). If people hear you run a shit raid,. I promise all the top guilds on the server have you blacklisted, and noone from those guilds will join you even on an alt, because you have a bad rep, and that's worse than the plague.

On the other hand, I have people accept my calendar invites each week, check it the night before, and show up 5 minutes early to raid, with flasks, consumables, and all their akf business taken care of, because they know if they fail at anyone of those, I'll give their spot to someone else in a heartbeat.

In short, if you want to run a good raid, act professional, and don't lower your standards, or you'll only get raiders with low standards.



P.S., GDKP is ftw when pugging.

Anonymous said...

"What is the incentive to raid a 25man raid?"

How about people actually liking just the atmosphere of raiding with 25 skilled raiders just as an example